


Goyle's Awakening

by Daernhelm



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23217412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daernhelm/pseuds/Daernhelm
Summary: What occurs to Mr. Gregory Goyle after the Battle of Hogwarts? How does his life change?
Relationships: Vincent Crabbe/Gregory Goyle
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue: The Battle of Hogwarts

Prologue  
The Battle of Hogwarts  
May 2, 1998

“Expelliarmus!” cried the young man with his dark tousled hair at the end of the haphazard corridor of forgotten junk.

Greg tightened his fingers around his wand too late. He watched helplessly as the 8 and one-third inches of poplar with a dragon heartstring core went sailing into the debris around them. He had always hated that spell. Why did Potter and his ilk rely on it so much? 

Greg knew his mind didn’t work the way Potter’s and that mudblood Granger’s did. He saw a problem and went straight to it. Why disarm when a good stunner, or better yet a crucio would work better and be faster? If your enemy was there, why not put them down? Mr. Malfoy could think like them, he understood the crazy twists and turns. What kind of mind he had to be able to comprehend the deranged minds of mudbloods and blood traitors and still be able to radiate the power Mr. Malfoy did?

Greg pushed those thoughts away. He had to get his wand. So he turned to where it had flown and began jumping up and down trying to find it amidst this damn junk. Vince would have his back. He didn’t need to worry. Sure, the fight had been fairly vicious, but there was something about Vince, about having been best friends with a man since you were 5. You might have fights, you might disagree on the little things - like whether to follow Mr. Malfoy - but you knew that they had your back. 

Vince had been getting lots of extra tutoring from the Carrow’s too, he could hold off the inferior magic of these weaklings for a while. 

“Avada Kedavra!” Vince’s voice bellowed behind him. Greg began to turn, slightly confused, as he was certain Mr. Malfoy had said not to kill them. Why wasn’t Vince listening to Mr. Malfoy anymore? Greg’s stomach churned at the fact that he was soon going to reach the point of no return. Vince was pulling farther and farther away from Mr. Malfoy, and between the two, Greg knew that his heart belonged with Vince. Yet, he was going to miss working as part of a three-person team.

His turn framed Vince's’ face once more, lit red at the moment by an incoming stunner. It seemed strange how time slowed for him at that moment watching the taller man’s flat nose and rugged jaw. Then… the red light of the stunner seemed to grow amazingly fast and Greg remembered no more.


	2. The Wandless: One and Half Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Legal ramifications and fallout from the Battle of Hogwarts. How quickly a society changes/forgets.

Chapter 1  
The Wandless  
One and a Half Years Later

Greg woke in darkness. He preferred it that way. Candles and torches and gas lamps all made him think...of Vince. He didn’t want to think about Vince. He didn’t want to think at all. As he rose his feet nudged aside empty bottles on the floor by his bed. He was desperate for a full one but he knew they were empty. Yet his hands still grabbed and shook a few in the hope that a forgotten drop would be discovered. After another moment he gave a silent curse and gave up. 

He shuffled over to the door of his room that led out into the always brightly lit hallways of Smith House. Eyes shut against the glare, and a few staggered steps later he was in the bathroom. The muggle style plumbing worked - but always seemed to take forever to provide hot water. He didn’t bother and splashed his face with cold water and looked into the mirror. 

Or rather didn’t look. Greg called it going turtle to himself. He would seem to detach his active thought process from the incoming sensory stimulus and just let his hands and body and life run on autopilot, brush the teeth, shave the face all without truly registering the face there.

If he had not been hiding in his shell, Greg would have seen what he had always seen. Plain brown hair growing low on his forehead was kept buzzed. Not now for any sort of intimidation factor, rather to prevent the need to care for and style hair. Eyes that still seemed too small for his face and still reflected dully in a manner that everyone - except Vince - had told Greg meant that he was stupid. 

And he supposed he was stupid. Eighteen months ago, Draco had asked Greg to turn Merlin’s Evidence with him and testify against some others. Draco explained that Greg had been doing what Vince and others and his teachers said he should, he’d been thinking the way his parents always said he should, he’d been standing up for a cherished way of life that was fading into the past. It wasn’t his fault, he was just following orders, said Draco. 

Greg had never seen what he was doing as wrong. What his father, and Lord Malfoy, had done as wrong. He had never actually applied critical thought to the ideas. They just were. The fabric of his world and his life. If Draco’s request had been to turn Merlin’s Evidence against them or the Carrows or any one of a hundred others from Minister Thicknesse on down he would have talked till the end of time. It would have been the same familiar pattern. Do what those in authority said, follow orders. Not that he could say much, Greg was not one often invited to sit in for strategy sessions. “A Pawn’s pawn, and that’s being generous,” was Mrs. Lestrange’s description of him.

What Draco asked was simple, turn Merlin’s Evidence - against Vince. When Draco had told him what he was suggesting before their solicitors had arrived, Greg had sworn he couldn’t have heard correctly. After Draco had made it clear that he was serious it had taken multiple stunners from three different Aurors to get Greg to release Draco. 

The House of Malfoy was no longer associated with the House of Goyle. And the assault ironically had earned Greg the 6 months that the Ministry Prosecutor had demanded he spend in Azkaban. All of his actions for the Carrows and the spells cast in his seventh year hadn’t landed him there. But an assault on one of the Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy’s scions had. It had earned Draco a rather nasty scar of his left ankle from where Greg had snapped the bone. Although by now Greg was sure that scar was erased from Draco’s mind as much as Greg and Vince were.

In addition to the time in Azkaban for the assault, Greg had been bound from magic for 2 years. Yet, as time passes, it is possible for the mood in a country to as well. The righteous anger of magical Britain in the days after May 2nd had gradually cooled. Currently, Sera Greengrass was introducing a bill to allow all those bound from magic who had passed a satisfactory parole hearing and had a sponsor to have full magical rights restored. At the moment this meant only a few people, notably Sera’s distant cousins the Parkinsons to have their magic returned.

For Greg, it seemed strange since today was his ‘parole’ hearing. Whereas previously he might have been able to anticipate a clean slate after today with simply waiting 6 months to get a new wand, now the parole boards were far more likely to disprove the parole simply to punish those wicked enough to have given a damn about the direction this country and society were going.

Greg walked down the narrow stairs at the back of Smith House, hoping his feet for once didn’t sound like a herd of descending elephants and alert every house elf in the place that he was leaving. Even one house-elf knowing he was leaving today was likely to mean that he was going to have an oh-so casual run-in with Zacharias. And today Greg just wasn’t in the mood. 

He was grateful of course. Zacharias Smith was the heir to a massive country manor and a small townhouse just off Diagon Alley. He was now working as a scout for the Wimbourne Wasps in the London area and generally living a life of ease as the scion of the House of Smith. He and Greg had achieved a mutual grudging respect for each other on the Quidditch pitch and Zacharias had offered Greg a place to stay when they ran into each other shortly after Greg’s release from prison. It wasn’t much, a room in the old servants quarters and the occasional meal, but it kept the rain off.

And Greg had nowhere else to be. 

They also were both outcasts. Hogwarts Alumni from the class of ‘98, which usually meant that you were viewed as a hero. That was the class of Neville Longbottom, of Ronald Weasley, of Hermione Granger, of Harry Potter. Of course, they were heroes! Who had they fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, had they spent the year in the Room of Requirement safe from the Carrows? When the answer was for Greg that you spent your seventh year learning how to better caste the Crucio curse and for Zacharias that you had deliberately fled Hogwarts rather than fighting people tended to look at you funny. 

It was a relief to be in a house where suggesting that Mr. Potter wasn’t a saintly glowing hero was acceptable. Where it was okay to openly gasp at the fact that the Chudley Cannons had consigned themselves to a bottom of table finish when they signed the streaky Ron Weasley as their starting keeper.

The one point where they didn’t quite see eye to eye was on Ms. Hermione Granger. Zacharias was burning a torch for her that was clear even to Greg. And the only time that Zacharias had ever mentioned asking Greg to leave was when Greg had, by chance, referred to her as a mudblood. And so Greg avoided the subject of Granger no matter what her exploits might be in the Daily Prophet. 

The House Elves must have been either asleep or complicit in Greg’s creep down the back stairs. Such things as servants staircases that could fit a normal man, let alone one of Greg’s size, were quite uncommon in the stately homes of the magical upper crust. Anyone who was anyone had a house-elf or two, so the need for a fleet of maids and footmen bouncing about was not common. That such a room as Greg had existed at all marked the house as belonging to a person who at one point had been wealthy/important enough to employ a live-in ‘man of business.’

The midday sun was baking the bricks of Somerset Crescent as Greg emerged. He recoiled immediately, the sun was far too bright for a November day. Greg pulled his lightweight Slytherin Quidditch cloak a little tighter around his shoulders. A glance to the arch that marked where Somerset Crescent led off Diagon Alley revealed that others were in far heavier and far bulkier robes for this time of year. Greg didn’t think he’d ever find something truly cold after Azkaban. The last of the Dementors had been being ushered out when he arrived but the chill of the creatures still seemed to radiate from those unforgiving rock walls. 

The journey to Rowle’s Arms in Knockturn Alley was probably a 30-minute walk. Most customers would have taken the Floo network to Gringotts and walked the 3 or so minutes to the pub, with a reputation as sinister as its namesake, from there. Greg didn’t like the Floo network, honestly, there was something about stepping into a green fire that just felt horribly like how he imagined it had felt to Vince in the end. So to walk for thirty minutes seemed no great loss to him. 

As he stepped into the pub, the publican a “Mr. Greene” - who Greg had believed when he said he didn’t need any other name - glanced at him sharply.

“Let’s see yer coin,” he snapped, as he crossed his arms muscles straining. 

Greg produced a silver sickle and showed it to the innkeeper and with a grunt said: “Anyone got der wireless on Mr. Greene?”

“Three of the Quietus rooms have it going, but only two is open for any guest.”

“I’ll have an ale,” Greg said sliding the sickle back into his pocket and pulling out 5 knuts. “Who is open,” he finished.

“Well there’s Mrs. Flint, in room 5, its run as a BYOB, discussion not encouraged. Room 6 has 10 bottles of Firewhiskey available and a caterer came in earlier to do up some fancy nosh. It’s fully open and ‘Supports Discussion’.”

This was the challenge facing Greg now, where to go to listen to the proceedings in the ministry to hear if the Greengrass bill passed. Rowle’s Arms had a fairly small common room, only two tables covered with the lines and scratches of old Wizarding Chess games. If you went to the Arms you likely were looking for one of the 10 Quietus Rooms. These rooms had anti eavesdropping charms on them that were freshened every fortnight or when an especially wealthy patron paid for it. While almost all Wizards would also then cast their own protective charms the idea was to provide all parties with some degree of protection. 

Most of the people meeting in the Quietus rooms were not truly acquainted with each other but had business of one kind or another to discuss. Occasionally some of the rooms would have the Magical Wireless turned on and groups would host small gatherings there, supporters of the Appleby Arrows used one for every game. Rooms could be considered Open to anyone who wanted to come in or Closed in which case only the invited few were allowed in. To buy an open room cost 4 sickles an hour or 1 galleon for a 5-hour block. 

The world was a strange, difficult one these days. You never knew what kind of discussions, or conversation, or, frankly, trouble could arise from simply sitting around with a group of people. Greg was of a size with Mr. Greene, if a touch shorter. His own muscles strained the sleeves of his robes and few could match him for sheer mean staring. Yet, after six months of cold stone enclosing him, he had promised himself that he was not going to return to a life of Greg ‘Goon’ Goyle. 

“Who’s running 6?” Greg asked carefully accepting the glass of ale that Mr. Greene slid his way. 

“Well, Lord Malfoy paid for it but… hey!” Mr. Greene’s indignant call bounced off Greg’s back as he walked carefully into room 5, nodded respectfully at Mrs. Flint and sat in one of the chairs lined against the wall. 

The wireless was, as Greg had expected, tuned to the News of the Day program. At the moment reporter, Cho Chang was describing the scene of the debate. 

“...really quite contentious here. Shacklebolt has actually taken to the floor to restore order and Sera Greengrass is still shouting that Mr. Weasley had shot a hex at her as she was presenting her speech to the assembled group.”

“Can you tell us, Cho,” the sonorous tones of Dan McLeod cut in, “will the vote be able to continue? We only got through about ½ the delegates. Did you see the Phoenix leave?”

“Dan, it is still a bit confused here, but what we can see and hear now, and what you can hear behind me is that the Phoenix is singing to calm the crowd. I imagine we will be able to complete this vote with almost no further interruptions. As a reminder to our listeners if those Delegates who were all Order of the Phoenix vote against the bill Mrs. Greengrass can only have 3 other votes go against her if she expects this to pass.”

“And so far,” Dan said, “we’ve seen no sign to indicate that any one delegate is going to change their minds on this bill.”

The voices and commentary droned on while. Greg didn’t care so much about the inner workings of the government, he just needed to know if he could have a wand again soon. 

The ale disappeared and another two had followed the first before finally Horace Slughorn cast a vote for Greengrass’s measure and it had officially passed. 

Feeling steady on his feet if a great deal lighter in the pocket Greg walked from The Rowle Arms into the future. He was wandless yes, but there was a kind of hope now. How much was still open to interpretation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of me wants to spend time truly delving into the why and wherefore of both the legal set up of Wizarding Britain as I've envisioned it here as well as Greengrass's Gaff... but that's another story I suppose.


	3. Chapter 2: Savings

Chapter 2  
Savings  
3 Months Later

The line shuffled along slowly towards Mrs. D at the counter. Greg shuffled along with it. For 3 months he had been working double shifts at Djilliuesti’s Magical Ironworks. D’s produced the best iron cauldrons and frying pans for household use that were in the words of Spokeswitch Gwenog Jones “perfect for charms!”. His father had worked at Mr. D’s as a salesman for a few years when Greg was very young, going door to door in magical Britain selling wrought iron fences that had been set with protection charms and alarm jinxes for intruders. Dad had been surprisingly good at his job, and Mr. D had gladly offered Greg a job even without magic. 

So Greg worked his double shifts, mainly moving ironwork that already had charms cast on it, the type of thing you couldn’t leave to a muggle to touch in case the special gate Mr. Nott had requested for his manor that could sing and carry on conversations with local tradesmen started talking. The pay wasn’t much, Greg knew that in some ways he was nothing more than a human forklift, but it was enough to keep him fed without his having to eat with Zacharias for every meal.

It was enough as well that after three months of double shifts Greg had finally saved enough so he could count himself once more a real wizard. Greengrass’s Gaff as some had called it had been amended to require the witch or wizard who sought full wand use and their magical rights restored to pass their parole hearing, prove steady employment, have the sponsorship of another wizard, and pay a five hundred galleon bond. 

The parole hearing had come and gone, and to his surprise, Greg had passed. He couldn’t understand all the words his solicitor had spoke but the old man had convinced the board to sign Greg’s papers. As the board had been packing up Greg had turned to the man, “Thank you, Mr. Fenwick.” Greg reached his hand out towards the older wizard.

Mr. Fenwick stared at Greg’s hand a long time before speaking. When he finally did speak again it was in a very low almost detached voice.

“Mr. Goyle, I have worked your case and done all I can for you because the ministry said I must. I guess you could say I’ve given you a second chance. It’s more than your father gave my son, but if I am to rise above the madness of vengeance I must give it to you.” He took Greg’s hand and shook it gravely. 

“I - I didn’t know my father did …” Greg started stammering taken aback by Mr. Fenwick’s comments.

“You probably weren’t even born when my boy Benjy was killed by your father, this was in ‘77. Do better son. Do better than your father, do better than my Benjy. Your generation is going to change Magical Britain. Do better than we did.” And Mr. Fenwick walked away briefcase in hand.

Greg stood now in front of Mrs. D who handled the money for her husband’s business. She smiled at Greg as he came up to her. 

“Well now Gregory,” Mrs. D always used his full name in talking with him. “That was another 80 hour week, you’ll soon put all these other lads out of work taking on work at that rate.”

Greg had always liked Mrs. D, she was a plump plain woman but was far more intelligent than he was and so patient. She had helped him out on his first days at the foundry in teaching him again and again how things worked there. She’d also spent at least 2 lunch half hours a week working with Greg on his quillwork. 

Greg hated writing, he found it hard to make his hand move the way others did with quills, each letter, each stroke was a chore for him, and beyond that, the letters never stayed put when he looked back at them. But Mrs. D never got mad or frustrated with him, and always complimented him on the progress he was making. He liked her for not saying he was as stupid as he knew he was like everyone else did. 

“It’s my last week of the doubles Mrs. D,” Greg said loudly. He knew some of the other employees had been mad at his grabbing up every free hour on the schedule. “I’ll be only 40 next week.”

“Well our loss, but I’m glad you’ll have a chance to sleep, honestly the way you came in some mornings one would have thought you didn’t sleep at all.” She slid two smaller bags that clinked across the board to him. “Good luck Gregory.”

He headed outside, there was a portkey that should get him back to Diagon Alley at 18:00 before Gringotts closed its doors for the night. The two small bags would bring Greg’s savings to 525 galleons. Technically 525 Galleons, 6 sickles, and 28 Knuts, but he tended to spend the sickles and knuts on lunch and ale and when he could get it firewhiskey. 

He missed the taste of firewhiskey, the smell of the bottle when it was first opened, and the weight of fine glass in your hand. Greg shook himself slightly, he promised himself that once he had the wand tomorrow he would buy a bottle to celebrate, but until then he needed to stay focused. Holding tight to the toilet seat Greg felt the familiar yank behind his navel as he was instantly transported to Diagon Alley. 

Things were going smoothly until Greg approached the goblin behind the counter at Gringotts. After providing the key and mentioning in passing that he intended to make a substantive withdrawal this evening the goblin peremptorily told him to stay put and walked away. When he returned he was accompanied by another goblin who was flanked by several security trolls. Greg did what he would have done instinctively, flexing his shoulders and shifting his weight to a more balanced position ready to strike. 

This looked like trouble. 

“Mr. Goyle,” the new goblin said in a remarkably low voice pitched for a goblin. “I understand that you wish to make a withdrawal from your account. That is within your rights, however, we have also been contacted by the firm of Stallings & Stallings regarding an outstanding debt accrued by your late father.” The goblin produced a document as if from thin air and passed it to Greg to read.

“They placed a lien for a considerable sum of money on your vault and we cannot allow you to withdraw money that would lower your balance below that currently under the lien. You can, of course, take this matter to court or discuss it with Stallings & Stallings.”

“How much?” Greg asked as he tried to read the paper in front of him. The stationary was certainly expensive and the decorations along the border spoke of considerable wealth. The words, however, swam on the page, seeming to fall into each other and swap letters with ones nearby. There was no way he would be able to read this here.

“I believe the figure that Stallings and Stallings are looking for is approximately two thousand five hundred…” the goblin began but Greg cut him off.

“... seventy-three galleons and 10 sickles.” Greg finished for him. It was the exact amount the "thank you" dinner had cost. The dinner his father had thrown for some of his friends after Lord Malfoy’s fall. It had been a gamble to suggest to those in favor with The Dark Lord that Goyle was still a valuable member of the Death Eaters. It was the dinner where his father had been discussing with these friends the finer points of the Cruciatus curse. Where Father had needed a subject for the curse and at the suggestion of Rodolphus Lestrange had summoned his son. That the night was still finding a way to torture him all these years later Greg found somewhat ironic. 

“Do you still wish to visit your vault, Mr. Goyle?” the goblin asked. Greg shook his head. He didn’t want to visit his vault ever again. He didn’t want to even think about the vault or his thrice-damned father or paroles or bonds or double shifts feeling the weight of the iron tear skin off of your fingers and struggle with semi-sentient fences. 

He stumbled from the bank. His mind a whirl, the flickering gas lamps of Diagon Alley were lit and by their glow and the occasional wand casting forth light from a lumnos spell Greg’s vision was a jumble of crossing shadows and conflicting images. He had 22 galleons in his pouches, and whereas before he had simply wanted a firewhiskey Greg knew now that he needed one. 

The rest of the night was not one that Greg could ever remember as anything more than occasional still scenes of a few brief seconds. 

When he raised his third bottle of firewhiskey at the Rowle’s Arms... 

Mr. Greene’s hands depositing him outside at closing after he had refused to leave... 

The loudness of the Knight Bus as it stopped in front of him... 

The feel of air rushing over his fist as he took a swing at the conductor when he wouldn’t accept a fifth of firewhiskey as payment... 

The feel of his stomach cramping as it tried to eject anything and everything inside him at the arch to Somerset Crescent... 

And finally staggering into Smith house with three half-finished bottles swinging from his hands and screaming “Happy Fucking Christmas Z!!!”

What was clear now was that he was well and truly beyond saving.


	4. Awakening: The Next Morning

Chapter 3  
Awakening  
The Next Morning

“Mr. Goyle must wake now,” a quavering voice spoke gently into the fog of Greg’s blank mind. His eyelids flitted open, but they refused to focus on the blurry form in front of him. His mind acknowledged the shortness of the creature, but the pain in his head suggested that the correct response to it, to ANY stimuli at the moment was to fall back to sleep. His eyelids slid closed again as he decided to give in.

“Mr. Goyle MUST wake NOW!” the voice tugged him awake once more. A small force was shoving Greg’s thigh, and an iron bar was pressed into his shoulder. His eyes tried to focus again on the creature who was shoving his leg with what appeared to be its entire weight. 

“Gnughh?” Greg asked.

“Master has asked you to join him for breakfast,” the unnaturally loud voice was not disappearing as Greg had hoped. There was nothing else for it, his hand shot out and attempted to grab the pestering pixie that had decided to torment a man as down on his luck as Greg.

“Mr. Goyle must not grab Dinsey. Please stop Mr. Goyle, Master has asked for you to eat with him.” Greg’s hand kept up the ineffectual attempt to silence the damned pixie. Finally, he connected with something and instinctively he tightened his grip. 

The shriek the creature gave at this brought Greg sitting upright immediately. It was the most horrible sound that he had heard in the last year. A wail of unsurpassed agony and indignation. Greg’s eyes focused on the creature that he was holding by one leg. With a shock, he recognized Dinsey, one of Smith House’s House Elves. 

He carefully put down the shrieking creature stammering, “Oh goodness Dinsey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you. Are you all right?”

Dinsey had stopped the shriek the moment that Greg had placed her down once more. She was currently straightening the smock that she wore proudly. “Mr. Goyle has been told to not grab for us before. I wanted Mr. Goyle to know he was in trouble before I had to hurt him. Dinsey does not like hurting Mr. Goyle.”

“I know Dinsey, I’m sorry, I seem to have a head this morning,” Greg said with an attempt at a little laugh. The back of his mouth tasted like a bug had crawled inside to die. 

“Mr. Goyle must meet Master for breakfast,” said Dinsey with the faintest disapproving look at Greg. 

Greg grunted, his stomach twitching at the idea of food and he worried that he was going to end up adding to the mess on the floor. Again from the look of it. He stood up and noticed that the previously presumed iron bar was just an empty bottle of firewhiskey that he had apparently fallen on when he passed out last night. His clothes stank of alcohol and vomit.   
“Let me just go change my robes,” Greg said to Dinsey, hoping that the House Elf would let him go so he could grab the flask of whiskey he kept in his room so he could steady his nerves. 

Alas it was not to be, with a small sigh Dinsey snapped her small fingers and Greg’s robes instantly were cleaned of the caked vomit and spilled whiskey. “Master wanted you to join him promptly,” Dinsey said with a small nod. “But Master must be able to Eat breakfast. So Dinsey has helped.”

Greg followed Dinsey towards the sunroom where a light repast of fruit, eggs, sausage, bacon, ham, steak, waffles, and assorted pastries were spread over a sideboard. As was tradition, you served yourself breakfast, while lunch and dinner would be served by the amazing ministrations of the house-elves. 

“G! You’re looking better than when I nearly broke my neck stumbling over you in the front hall this morning. Although not much better. Want some coffee? Tea? Dinsey, get G a cup of coffee, blacker than a Dementor’s arse okay?” Zacharias Smith boomed and babbled in his normal manner. One that Greg had never understood. For Greg, it took considerable time to get his mind wrapped around conversation other than extreme basics. His mind just seemed a second behind everyone else, and so instead of speaking and embarrassing himself with how stupid he seemed if he said something after Draco or Vince or Pansy had already said something far more clever, Greg had just started to stay quiet. 

Zacharias never stayed quiet. Or at least not more for him to hear the beginning of your sentence so he could interrupt you. His mind and mouth seemed to move so fast and Greg was sure that what he was saying was witty. After all, Zacharias laughed at what he said so often it must be. 

“Zachar… Z,” Greg corrected himself, “I really don’t want a coffee…” 

“Nonsense,” Zacharias, cut in, “G, you tied one on last night, a good cup of coffee is exactly what you need. A little pick me up before you get your wand today. Still, planning on going to Ollivanders? There is a new wandmaker in Godric’s Hollow I hear, prices are very reasonable, and she’s willing to use more exotic cores than the old man. No? Well, I suppose one must keep up appearances. Where is Dinsey with that coffee?”

Dinsey was just that moment walking in with a tray of coffee, with creamer and sugar bowl. Greg smiled inwardly as he sat at the sun-dappled table where Zacharias was sitting. Dinsey was a house-elf and would, of course, obey Zacharias’s commands, but she knew that Greg loathed the taste of black coffee. She had even brought the ‘Mr. Goyle China’ as she termed it, the thick nearly indestructible mugs and bowls that Muggles had designed for use onboard ships at sea in rough weather. 5 spoonfuls of sugar later and Greg could almost stomach the coffee. 

“Actually… uh… Z, about the wand,” Greg started.

“Of course I’m willing to be your sponsor for that G. Don’t mention it again, I already agreed didn’t I? And of course, the sponsorship of a Member of Dumbledore’s Army should carry extra weight. I imagine even the ministry still jumps when one of us mentions something. Not like you Inquisitorial Squad chappies eh? Still, we were young can’t blame you for getting on the wrong side like that when even the sorting hat put you Slytherin.” Zacharias was in full babble mood this morning, that much was very clear. 

“No, Zacharias.. Sorry Z, I am not going to be able to get a wand, it’s an old family debt I’ve got to repay…” Greg cut in giving as vague an answer as he could. 

“Ah well say no more. Look, old man, I hate to be bore, but we do need to talk about last night. See, this has become a bit of a pattern. I’m sure you understand the Crescent gets very perturbed at any sort of visible disturbance, and I’m rather afraid you managed to wake up several neighbors including the Fudges and Shafiqs. They were quite understandable that the first time this happened. I mean most of us have had a drink once in a while.” Zacharias paused for breath. Greg worried sometimes that his friend enjoyed talking so much that he’d forget to breathe. 

At the same time, a knot was growing tighter in his stomach. He may have had a drink or two before, but nothing really serious. So he sang in high spirits? What was wrong with that. But in a super posh neighborhood like this, it was probably frowned on. Still as destitute as the House of Goyle may be it was certainly not a time for it to be pushed around by the likes Rufus Fudge. As Greg prepared his rejoinder Zacharias continued.

“So, I want you to promise me to lay off the drink? I know, it is a tedium sport but I’m sure you can do it. I’ve asked Faud to remove any he finds in your room. And we’ve put a new lock on the wine cellar. Should help a bit.”

Greg stood up. It was one thing to give him a mild reproof but to demand he stop having the occasional glass of firewhiskey? To suggest that he’d steal from his host when he had not so much as taken a single bottle from Smith Houses was the gravest of insults. He placed the mug of coffee down on the table extremely carefully as he was sure that if he had just put it down he would have smashed the mug. 

“I’m leaving Mr. Smith. Thank you for the hospitality of your house.” He turned to leave. A quick stop at his room, there wasn’t much there. Then he could be gone. Out of a place where he was so unappreciated as this. Of course, where he should go was an excellent question but Greg thought he could find somewhere. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. D could give him a bed. 

“G, please…” Zacharias began. But Greg continued to walk from the sunroom towards the rest of the house. 

“Greg, if you must leave I understand. I’m ever so pleased that you’ve been our guest here at Smith House, what do you say as a last day type thing that you come with me to Cornwall today, my treat? The second round of the European Schools Quidditch cup is taking place at Rame Head. Rame Academy of Astronomy has several promising players and of course, you’ve heard of their opponent Mudgley Muggle, they’ve been the talk of the sport world this year. They’ve not lost a match.”

Greg stopped at the foot of the narrow steep staircase that led to his room. With a sigh, he turned back to Zacharias. He realized that he was only fooling himself that he had anywhere else to go. He did his best to tone down his looming. He often was told that his normal facial expression looked like he was trying to stare down a rhinoceros. “Z, I would be very glad to join you for this journey, and please do forgive me for the outburst just now.”

“Think nothing of it, portkey leaves in 15 minutes if you want to change. Dinsey can show you where to go for Omnoculars or anything else you might need. We might need to do a little flying ourselves see how some of these prospects do what do you say? Course we’ll use borrowed brooms if it comes to that.”

Greg moved up the stairs as quickly as his bulk would allow, turning sideways without thinking. If he had attempted to climb the stairs square on he would have become stuck, which some might see as a comment on the size of his shoulders, but Greg tended to see it as a mark of just how narrow the stairs were.

The bathroom at the top of the stairs provided the cold water he needed to shock himself a little more awake, and after a small check of his room, he did indeed find his flask and the extra bottles of firewhiskey he had saved all empty. He changed quickly into his second-best robes, which after the tear last night might now be his best robes, grabbed a second hooded sweatshirt to go underneath and turned to find Dinsey standing in the door to the room. 

Years ago Greg had been allowed to listen to the lecture that Lord Malfoy gave his son about the proper discipline and use of house-elves. He hadn’t understood much of it himself, since how Draco was being told to treat House Elves was how Draco treated nearly everyone including Vince and Greg, but there had been one statement that he always had remembered.

“Never,” Lord Malfoy said. “Never apologize to a House Elf. It serves no purpose. The creature can barely comprehend clear human speech you can rest assured that they do not understand niceties of polite society. There is nothing you can do that will justify apologizing to the creatures up to and including killing them, the only reason to stay your hand there is because of the financial burden finding a new house-elf entails.”

Greg had always followed that precept at Hogwarts where the hundreds of house elves that lived and worked there were a scarce site around the Slytherin dungeons. And during his summer when he and Vince would visit Draco for some training together he had certainly never seen fit to apologize to the string of house-elves the Malfoy’s kept. 

And yet… he looked at Dinsey standing in the doorway. Remembered the horrid shriek she had let out when he grabbed her and thought back to when he Draco and Vince and he had been practicing for Quidditch. To improve Vince and his aim with bludgers Draco suggested that they use moving targets to ‘simulate game time chaos’. Instead of levitating and charming a bunch of targets, Vince had suggested they just use a house elf. Draco loved the idea. Greg had been indifferent. The two men he loved most, Draco, his benefactor, who despite calling him every name under the sun also knew that a lords duty was to those who served him loyally; and Vince, his best friend, the man he had grown to love through 7 years at Hogwarts, and who he knew would never return those feelings besotted as he was with Daphne Greengrass. Those two had said it was okay. And the bludgers that Greg had smashed towards the house-elves had caused them to shriek, just like Dinsey had. Greg hadn’t slept well for two weeks after that, and given everything else… maybe Lord Malfoy had been wrong about this as well. 

“Look Dinsey, I’m… really sorry about earlier,” Greg said swallowing. To his surprise, the house-elf smiled at him and seemed to fully comprehend his comments. 

“Dinsey has already forgotten Mr. Goyle. Would Mr. Goyle like a thermos of tea for the match, Dinsey has heard that it can be cold in Cornwall in February,” the diminutive house-elf offered a thermos larger than she was towards Greg.

Taking it he said, “Thanks, where is this portkey Dinsey?” and he turned to follow as she led him out of the house and to the end of Somerset Crescent.

**Author's Note:**

> This story first appeared and will continue to appear on FanFiction.net. I will try and update on AO3 with the first 11 chapters once a day. Then It will be as I finish writing them. 
> 
> I'm hoping this will be a slightly cleaner more readable copy.


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